Set in the capital city of the world's largest Muslim country, Aryo Danusiri's manuscript focuses on new ways of practising Sufism in contemporary Jakarta. Instead of capturing Sufism as an inner spiritual, esoteric practice of mystical Islam, this research tells stories about a newly emerging Sufi movement struggling to reconcile Islam with urban life.
Much of the research about contemporary life in the Muslim world has paid attention to the lives of Muslims on the extreme. On the one hand, it explores the struggles of Muslims who are condemning and resisting modern culture and the so-called 'Western' way of life. On the other hand, literature is sympathetic to Muslims who strive to employ a liberal interpretation of the Quran on contemporary life, including sexual orientation.
In contrast to these extreme portrayals, Aryo Danusiri's essay is concerned with moderate Muslims who not only struggle continuously to redefine 'Islam' but also fight to survive under the current economic crisis. Unlike many upper-middle-class Muslims who adopt Sufism as a form of escapism, the lower-middle-class youths in Jakarta inhabit an Islamic identity to help them engage with the harsh life of the city. The leaders of this movement come from a group of migrants from Hadramawt in south Yemen, which it is acknowledged are descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. Their honorific title is Habib or Habaib in the plural. A young scholar has been redefining the Sufi Brotherhood, Tariqa Alawiyya, by engaging in various urban issues. Characterized by flexible relationships between scholars and students, the brotherhood does not require formal allegiance (bay'a) for its members. It inducts its membership by way of prophetic genealogical relationships and complex practices. The form of a voluntary study group (majelis ta'lim) suits the plasticity of the new Tariqa movement perfectly.
His manuscript attempts to understand the process of the formation of the Islamic youth movement in Indonesia-a phenomenon that is not limited to Indonesia-as other scholars have chronicled the proliferation of novel Islamic movements in megacities. However, few studies have adequately addressed the role of urban practice as the generative force in forming urban movements. Therefore, this project focuses on the developmental process of the religious movement as a practice of making relations and networks; many other pieces of research into the Islamic movement have concentrated on its rigidity, coherency, and uniformity. As this project attempts to cultivate the subjectivities of Muslims, Aryo Danusiri understands the movement and its youthful followers as fragmented, fragile, and incomplete entities. In this way, his research moves away from depicting Islam as a mere discursive text and articulates it as it is lived.
Aryo Danusiri
At IIAS, Aryo Danusiri will transform his dissertation entitled 'Urban Stories: Spatiality, Mediality, and Religious Authority' into a book manuscript.